


The Decoy

by arrowinthesky (restfulsky5)



Series: Not the Final Act [3]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Actor, Alternate Universe - Bodyguard, Alternate Universe- Modern Setting - Freeform, Angst, Drama, Friendship, Hurt!Jim, Hurt!McCoy, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Intrigue, M/M, Major Illness, Romance, Triumvirate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-09-14 03:40:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9158488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/restfulsky5/pseuds/arrowinthesky
Summary: "Protect 'im?” McCoy slurred. “Now, how the hell am I gonna do that?”“You will make them believe it is Jim who leaves first. That it was him who has been shot, instead.” Spock paused, concerned when the injured man’s lashes flutter and his eyes roll back in his head. But it was only briefly. Hazel eyes soon peeked through again. “It will be dangerous, but you will succeed.”McCoy’s laugh was short and weak, as he blinked himself awake. Spock felt a prick of remorse, for the way in which the medical team had kept him lucid, just enough to speak with him.“The hell I will. I'm shot, not a hero,” McCoy said hoarsely.“That is why you must listen very carefully.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoy this third part! FYI, it "is" necessary to read the first two parts to this series to understand this one. Luckily, they are fairly short. :)
> 
> Thank you, Diamondblue4 and Junker5, for looking this over and offering comments. :)
> 
> Warning: major illnes and character injury (NO death..this series IS a happy ending one, though there is plenty of angst before that happens)

 

_Bones._

_Shot._

_A clean through and through._

_He’s losing too much blood._

The words Jim had heard after the shot was fired haunted him with every step that Ben took. With each step that carried him away from Bones

The distance only made him concentrate harder on envisioning the aftermath he’d been unable to see, for it was the only way he could make sense out of the chaos. He imagined blood, pumping out of Bones’s body and pooling beneath him on the floor. The distorted, stunned look on Bones’s face, if he was conscious, at all. The frantic look in Nyota’s eyes, for even such a skilled actress as she could not bear the thought of a dying friend.

He imagined life as a stark, gaping hole that would never mend, not with all the money in the world.

He knew where Ben had taken him the moment the door closed, its thud reverberating with finality in his ears like the end of one of his most morbid scenes. It shook him to his core, and he frantically wished he wasn't limited to hearing, alone. It made the finality he heard in that single thud all that much worse.

_This couldn’t be the end._

He and Bones had wanted more than this. They had too much ahead of them, right at their fingertips, thanks to Jim’s career, the money he'd set aside for a rainy day. They had been on the cusp of new beginnings, having already endured more than most.

Miscommunication.

Years apart.

Pining.

Resignation.

Loss.

_Jim’s tumor._

They had more happiness to come, didn’t they?

Jim clenched his eyes shut, futilely. His left eye drooped, unable to close, not that it mattered. He was blind, either way. Fitted for darkness. They said it was temporary, but they did not know with certainty that would be the case.

Life had given him a bad hand but he was trying to make the best of it, to live life to its fullest as much as he could.

Bones’s love made it easier for him to want to endure. He sensed it pouring off Bones, whenever he held his hand or sat next to him. And when he talked, the affection was there, too, in his voice. It didn’t matter that Jim couldn’t see his smile or see the light in his eyes. He knew the smile was there, and the light, just the same. They would face this together.

If they _were_ together.

His chest tightened, painfully, emotion crowding upon more emotion, stealing his breath away. It was if every fiber of his being screamed for Bones, the touch of his hand, the drawl of his voice. The promise of tomorrow.

But even that—their plans for the future—couldn’t penetrate these four walls. Four unbreakable, impassable thick walls that Jim himself had helped engineer, using the secondary degree he’d earned at the university.

The walls, this place, this panic room, only indicated one thing.

Danger.

The shot indicated there’d been at least one person watching his house. And if there were one, there were bound to be more. How much danger was he really in, for Ben to want to contain him here? How long would Ben hold him in this place, away from Bones?

Had he sight, or a mind and body that worked, he’d never leave Bones’s side. That is how it was supposed to have been. Not this. Their lives shattered with one strike of a bullet.

“Ah, my Kanzi, I can hear your thoughts.” Ben lowered him, as he sat down on the floor, holding him in his arms as if he weighed nothing. “Like the growl of a tiger, or a plane flying overhead in the bush. It is loud and consuming.”

He did not deny it. Nor did he complain that his neck was crooked, only tugging at his shirt.

Ben seemed to understand and gently manipulated Jim’s partially broken body, so that his head was upright and resting back against his shoulder. He was comfortable, finally, and Jim breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

“Kanzi, this is good for you,” Ben said softly. “You will see.”

“Ghogh!” he said determinedly. He was not a weak man, despite his limitations.

“No,” Ben was quick to reply. “We will stay here. The _mabaya_ cannot find you within these walls.”

_Evil men._

Did Ben believe there were more than one, then? How would they get Bones out of here, safely? Those men, the mabaya, would find a way to hurt him, Jim was sure of it.

“Bonezzgh,” Jim protested.

“I will find out how he is soon. You must wait.”

Soon might be too late.

“Mu-muh—” he suddenly choked, saliva coating his mouth.

Ben tipped Jim’s head to the side, which allowed his pooling saliva to slip out of his mouth. As if he were a child. An invalid. A...a crazy man.

He sputtered, messily, feeling it gather at the corner of his lips. “Muhh—” he tried to say again.

A cloth touched his chin, then his cheeks, and with humiliation he realized that Ben was wiping drool off his face for him.

“—therrr,” he slurred.

“Ah, you say _mother_ with the love of a true son.” Ben hummed in his throat, like a song.

Jim felt the vibrations travel through his own body. It was comforting, in an odd way. This cold, solitary place held security but gave little comfort. Having a bodyguard who was acting like a nursemaid was not comfortable, either. It was... _he was_...ashamed.

“Your mother will be cared for. By your baba, no?”

He tried to find comfort in that. His father. Baba. They were one and the same. And Winona, she was as strong as Jim, if not stronger than him.

But the evil men, the mabaya, were smart. Were skilled. Would stop at nothing. They hadn't since they'd first attempted to take his life.

His mother. His father. Bones. Even Nyota. Were any of them truly safe, even if the sniper and his accomplices were captured?

His leg twitched, and a feeling of dread coursed through him. He detested his body. Weakened. Frail. Helpless. He was stunned, momentarily, with the jerking movements. Ben began to murmur in his ear, as if to console him, but he understood none of it. Before he could try to restrain himself, more tremors racked him, the twitching no doubt distorting his grotesque appearance even more.

When this tumor was done with him, after it had finished ravaging his body, and Bones’s fate had ravaged him, too, would there be anything of him left? Of them?

“Hang on tight, Kanzi,” Ben whispered, smoothing back the hair from Jim’s sweaty neck.

The command confused him. He was not holding onto Ben now. He could not hold on to the stronger man at all. “Whyght?”

“To your hope.”

 

.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.

 

Voices he did not recognize fell around him, like pieces of shrapnel, each sound striking his brain, painfully waking him up from a dream.

But he didn’t feel right. He felt wrong. Maybe this was a nightmare.

The numbness of before quickly vanished.

Gone, in a blink.

In place of it was _fire_. He felt it now.

He wanted to curl up and die.

Why? Why did he think he should be dying?

These doubts he had weren’t...weren’t good. Jim would think he was craz—

Jim.

 _Jim_.

Fuck, he’d lost him, hadn’t he? He needed to...to protect Jim, but how could he...his side was exploding…when…

Christ, couldn’t he just sleep? He was so...tired.

“Leonard, can you hear me?”

The clear voice startled him. He gasped, but what breath he’d expected to take, to have, wasn’t there.

Instead...he was remembering.

Forgetting?

He’d been on the porch.

He groaned. No, no that wasn’t right.

Balcony.

 _Fuck_.

A shot had been fired. Someone had been....

 _He’d_ been shot.

Of all the stupid things...he’d been stupid, hadn’t he? Going out ther—

But...where was there? Nyota would know, wouldn’t she?

“Nyota,” he whispered, his feeble voice hardly reaching his own ears.

She didn’t reply, but the answer came to him, anyway, like a dandelion seed floating in the wind, but in his mind. His side, he remembered, right before the thought drifted away. He’d been shot and Jim was—

The thought was lost.

A burning sensation erupted in his side, opening like a fan and a shooting through him, as if every single part of him was being consumed by fire, stripped from his body, one piece at a time. A guttural sound escaped him, and another, followed by a scream. Endless tremors, like constant flashes of lightning, struck him.

The shaking was uncontrollable, humiliating. And made him think...of Jim.

 _Jim_.

He groaned, low and deep, and desperate. He lifted his head to stare down at himself, though he didn't know why he did, or how he managed the strength with this shell of a body that couldn't possibly be his.

He was strong. He was Jim’s _rock_.

It scared him when he didn’t understand what he saw, couldn’t make sense of his surroundings. The world around him was oddly distant, like it had been suddenly consumed with a million blinking lights and blurred faces, retracting from his line of sight.

“Shit,” someone whispered. “Keep him down! I see where it went through. Good God, he's lucky.”

He tried to laugh. Lucky? Goddammit, they don't know how stupid—

Hands pulling at him were too fast, too strong. His back arching from a sudden wave of pain, he bit back another scream, tasted the blood he drew in his mouth.

He’d do no favors for himself if he'd screamed until his throat was raw.

“He’s fighting, but we need more. Ford, get that morphine drip started, stat!”

There was the prick of a needle in the back of his hand, before he felt it sliding in, little by little, felt every millimeter it moved, for then he knew what was happening. Other hands tugged at his body, as it went lax.

He was sinking, helplessly.

Falling.

Drowning.

 _Drowning_.

And he saw no end.

 

.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.

 

“There are others, sir,” one of his men, Gallant, told him. “We’ve apprehended two, the police one, but there are signs of more at the west side of the property.”

“So we aren’t safe, just like I thought.”

Gallant hesitated. Chris couldn't help but compare him to his other agents. Although he was as capable as McCoy, or any other of the men and women who faithfully taken up this mission for his son’s sake, he wasn’t unaware of the risk to what being asked of him. That knowledge, perhaps, had caused a bead of sweat to form on his brow.

This was Jim, Chris’s son, and they all knew the sacrifice they might have to make. All of them.

“No, sir.”

“And where is _he_?”

“Delayed, sir. You know how he is. He got caught in the crossfire coming in, but he'll enter the house at your word.”

Chris saw their world imploding if _he_ didn't survive, either. Jim, in his fragile state, couldn’t handle two losses. He’d have to speak to him, though it would be of no use. “Send him in. We can’t make McCoy wait any longer. We'll lose him if we do. It's time for Skyknife. Tell him.”

Gallant inhaled sharply. The implications of this measure alone would challenge everyone. But his vulnerable son's safety depended upon it. And if McCoy were in his shoes, he'd do the same.

He'd bet his life on it.

“Sir?” Gallant asked, disbelievingly.

“Skyknife,” he said with a steely voice. “It's the only way to get Jim to the hospital unharmed.”

 

.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.

 

“We need to do whatever is necessary to stop the bleeding, but keep him awake.”

“Fuck _that_. McCoy’s life is at stake—”

“I realize that,” a voice said harshly. “But we have orders, that just came in. Stop the bleeding, use all the morphine that we can. Then he wants to speak with him before we take him to the top.”

“Is he crazy?” a man yelled. “This man needs surgery,” he insisted.

He wanted to curse them all. The shouting hurt his ears, confused him more. He groaned, his mouth parting in a feeble gasp. Fire swept through his writhing body. Then one of ice. One of fire. Back and forth it went, as multiple hands held him down.

“More morphine!”

A stretched, hoarse breath escaped him. “Whaththahell goin’on?” he slurred.

A soft hand patted his cheeks, like he was pizza dough. Jim liked pizza. He started to laugh—

“He's delirious, already,” someone to his left muttered.

—and before she spoke, he knew it’d be her. “Look at me, Leonard. For Jim.”

 _Jim_.

Fuck, the kid had to be worried...worried sick…

He should be thinking of Jim, and he was here, bleeding out, and dyin’... _and pizza._...he was _failing_ him.

“Leonard, please,” Nyota pleaded again, and he tried. For Jim, he tried, just as she said.

Her face blurred before him, but was bright like that of an angel’s.

He must be dying. “Dyin’?”

Her tears shone, were beacons for him to latch on to. “Not yet,” she whispered, holding his hand. “It missed your vital organs, but that…doesn't mean—” She hissed a breath. “He needs his surgery soon, Leo. They’ll get him out of here, after you. They can’t wait any longer…”

Her words were lost to him as nausea traveled upward in his throat at the speed of light. With a groan, he signaled to her, the others, whoever was holding his life in their hands, that he was going to be sick.

Afterwards, as he tried to listen to her and ignore his own state, he was entrapped by a stark fear that he would never see Jim again.

 

.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.

 

Jim’s eyes drooped, even the drooping one. That's when he knew. “It’sha been too longhh.”

“No, Kanzi,” Ben said quietly.

“We w-were...going to get mar-ried,” Jim whispered.

Ben was quiet. “Oh, Kanzi.”

Jim held on.

To that dream, and that dream alone.

 _Married_.

 

.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.

 

He met the first medic in the hallway, outside Jim’s bedroom. She hesitated outside his door, her hand lingering on the doorknob after she closed it.

“Mister Spock!” she gasped, becoming aware of his presence.

“Let me pass,” he ordered, brushing her aside, forcefully.

“We need to get him to a hospital.”

“He will be transported there shortly, after I speak with him.”

Her eyes widened, and she moved in front of him again. “Sir, I don’t suggest it.”

“Is he in danger of losing more blood?”

“No, but we've managed to stop the worst of the bleeding. He’s shot, sir, and seriously wounded. If we hadn't been on site, he would have died,” the woman exclaimed.

“But he did not,” Spock said calmly.

Her eyes widened more, if that was possible, looking like saucers to be launched into the sky. “Don’t you think that treating this man, who is in critical condition, getting him to a hospital, should be our first priority?”

He exhaled impatiently through his nose. Should he threaten her with insubordination? “Lead me to him.”

“I don’t agree with this,” she said, voice shaking. “But we’ve followed orders. We’ve given him enough medication to keep him lucid. To keep him alive, possibly for a few hours more.”

“That is all that I require,” he hissed. “Do you not realize whose life is at stake? It is imperative that we take care of the needs of Jim Kirk first.”

Her face paled and she dropped her hand from the doorknob. “Oh, I—”

He pulled her away from the door, no longer caring about propriety, or her inability to understand the simplest of requests.

_Keep my son alive._

That is what every single one of them had been charged with, even her.

And especially him.

 

.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.

 

The sudden appearance of Spock did nothing to resolve the questions he had.

No, of course it didn’t. But when had Spock ever accomplish anything but provide him with some level of irritation, not that he didn’t like the guy. He did. No, as he saw purple cows with glittering tails around him, and heard ponies whinnying, his presence only served to confuse him more.

What the ever-loving fuck was Spock doing with two guns strapped to his body?

“You date Ny,” he said, and, somehow, mustered the strength to glare at him, panting through a strangling breath. “An actor,” he slurred.

 _You lied,_ he also accused silently.

Spock’s eyes darkened, filled with the steely edge of a man on a mission.

He could sense...before anything else was said...that that mission...was Jim.

“It served me for a time,” Spock replied quietly.

He couldn’t mean…?

But he did…didn’t he?

 

.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.

 

“Agent,” McCoy whispered. “You’ve been working for Chris. All this...time?”

He mourned that his cover was blown, but it was time. “Indeed, Doctor, to find who is responsible for the attempts on Jim’s life. Now that it has happened again, I’ve come to ask you to protect Jim Kirk, one more time.”

“Protect 'im?” McCoy slurred. “Now, how the hell am I gonna do that?”

“You will make the perpetrators believe it is Jim who leaves first. That it was him who has been shot, instead.” Spock paused, concerned when the injured man’s lashes flutter and his eyes roll back in his head. But it was only briefly. Hazel eyes soon peeked through. “It will be dangerous, but you will succeed.”

McCoy’s laugh was short and weak, as he blinked himself awake. Spock felt a prick of remorse, for the way in which the medical team had kept him lucid, just enough to speak with him.

“The hell I will. I'm shot, not a hero,” McCoy said hoarsely.

“That is why you must listen very carefully.”

 

.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.

 

The air had grown thick in the panic room, as he’d feared it would. Jim swallowed, parted his dry, parched lips with a long breath. He was thirsty. Had he forgotten to put water in here?

“Ben?” he croaked, relieved that when he said his bodyguard’s name this time, it was semi-intelligible. “Water.”

“Kanzi, you are awake. I will give you water.” The opening of a bottle touched his lips. “Drink.”

He drank, but not much.

“Bennn,” he repeated.

“Yes, Kanzi.”

“News?” He eased back into the other man’s chest, grateful for his comfort. He did not like his condition, but he disliked it more when he was alone.

“We will leave soon.”

“Danger?”

Ben’s laughter rumbled. “You ask too many questions, Kanzi, as I expected.”

“Bad habit,” he said weakly.

“This danger will pass,” Ben said softly. “You will see.”

 

.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.

 

“My son, Chris,” Winona said. “You’ll let me go with him?”

Spock wanted both of them to accompany McCoy, who would be disguised as their son, but the helicopter was too small. And Chris, whose soft spot was Jim Kirk, no matter how tough he tried to appear, could not let that happen.

“Yes,” Chris said firmly. “You'll ride in the car, once Ben brings him out, after Skyknife takes off.” He tucked a stray tendril behind her ear.

Spock arched a brow in surprise at the ministration. He was almost certain that Jim did not know of this new development.

“My baby,” she cried, falling against Chris’s chest. “Keep him safe, Chris. Please. And Leonard. They need each other.”

The older man slipped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head. “He’ll leave soon. We’re waiting on the helicopter, then we must allow some time to pass before another vehicle leaves the house. The police will still be here, and I’m sure whoever is behind this will never know the difference.”

“You have leads?” Win asked.

Chris answered, with an assuring nod, “Yes.”

She tipped her head back, eyes soft and earnest as she stared up at Pike. “They’ll both be fine, Christopher,” she whispered. “Because of you, and your team. I can never thank you enough.”

Chris, grim-faced, turned to Spock. “Thank Mister Spock, most of all, Win. Skyknife was his idea in the first place.”

“We must get to the top,” Spock said swiftly, not wanting to receive thanks for what he did for a friend of his own accord.

 

.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.

 

Thank God they’d gotten McCoy’s permission. The partial, half-mask to make McCoy resemble Jim from afar was now discarded to the side. He was pale, as still as death.

They’d had to wait. Hopefully, they hadn’t waited too long. Chris couldn’t bear the guilt of having killed the man Jim loved. Yes, he’d had his misgivings about Leonard, but it had been the only way to ensure Jim had a fighting chance. Besides, McCoy was a brave man, who never turned down the chance to use his skills, especially when it came to Jim.

He’d come back to Jim, hadn’t he? After all these years? All Chris had had to do was ask.

“Ready?” the pilot called back, as the medics finished harnessing the wounded man. ”Not sure this wind will do us any favors today.”

Chris and Spock locked gazes, before glancing down at the still form of Leonard H. McCoy, and those tending to him.

“How is he?” Chris asked loudly, fighting the sounds around them.

One of the medics sighed. “His pulse has weakened, sir, but he is stable. And secure.”

“Yes,” Chris yelled, over the noise and wind. “Go! And hurry.”

 

.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.

 

It was strange, the sense of liberation that coursed through him once Ben carried him out of the panic room and into the garage.

Ben hummed as he set him in the backseat of the car. “Kanzi, your mother is here.”

“Jim, baby,” his mother crooned. “I got you.”

Jim couldn’t believe it when it was his mother held him in the car, and not Ben, her arms closing around him. “Thought, you’d go withhe Bonezgh.”

“No,” she said softly into his ear. “Chris and Spock are with Leonard. I’m right where I should be. With you.”

“Hosp’al?”

“Yes.”

“Boneszgh?”

“He needs surgery, same as you.”

He felt his heart breaking. How could he proceed, not knowing of Bones’s condition? How?

“Oh, baby,” she said, kissing his cheek. “I know. I know.”

 

.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.

 

“Chris, he's refusing treatment,” Nyota said on the phone. “Unless he speaks with Leonard.”

Luckily, he was prepared for that. After all these years, he knew enough about Jim Kirk to have expected it.

“I'll put him on,” Chris said. Turning to Boyce, the surgeon, first, he waited for an indication that it was all right.

“He's awake,” Boyce said. He indicated with his head towards his patient, who was lying in his back, getting prepped for surgery—and staring at Chris with glazed, yet hopeful eyes.

Chris softened his gaze. “It's Jim,” he said, and placed the device by his ear.

McCoy moistened his lips. “Jim?” he said, then paused, with a fierce look of concentration on his face. “You listen...to me. You have that surgery—and I'll have mine—and we’ll meet on…”

 

.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.

 

“...the other side.”

And if they didn't? “Lo-ve you,” Jim whispered.

“I know what you're thinking, and I'll have none of that. You make it, you hear?” Bones demanded. “If not, I swear I'll hunt you down, Jim. I swear it. And I'll bring you back even if I have to bring Spock with me to find you, wherever the hell you are.”

Though his heart had already fractured with fear, he smiled. “Bones,” he breathed. “See you.”

“That's the spirit,” Bones said, quieting. “I know you can do it, Jim. And so can I.” There was an affectionate pause between them. “See you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Hoping to update with Part Four sooner than later... So I don't leave you hanging for long! Reviews are always greatly appreciated! :)


End file.
